dicky601

Meant to post this before we went on vacation; last week Herbie was sat on me whilst we were watching TV. He yawned and as yawns can be infectious I did the same. He then yawned again. I started to pretend to yawn and everytime I did this, he yawned. Unfortunately he got bored of this before I did and closed his eyes and went to sleep. It concerns me as to who may be the grown up in this relationship {Feel-good-00020069}

Herbie loves remote controls, we gave him his own a couple of weeks ago but he soon lost interest when he realised he was allowed to chew it. He is much more interested in what he is not meant to destroy!!

Can I get 1,000,000 Karma points for starting the topic? :woohoo:

Thanks for the feedback guys, great help as ever

We have just bought Herbie a harness, it fits in two ways. You can have the leash coming off his back so he can walk without getting tangled up, or you can have it so the leash comes off his front so that he can sit on your shoulder or a perch. Although we have not tried it yet and I'm sure it will take a while to get him used to it, although I have heard that if you can do this they can get to the point where they are excited when the see the harness as it means a trip outside. A bit like a dog when it hears the words walkies I guess. Hope that is of some help. (I didnt want to give advice on the other questions as the other guys have far more expreinece than I do yet).

Herbie was hatched on may 25th 2007 He came to us on 20th August 2007, and we continued to hand feed him baby formula for another couple of weeks. I think this has helped with the bonding process.

I'm really sorry to hear your sad news, you must be so upset. It is amazing how quickly you get attached to these little guys.

We give herbie warm sweetcorn, which he seems to love. The cold mornings have not hit London yet, but when they do it sounds a great idea to give him a warm breakfast. We have not tried rice, will give that a go. My girlfriend gave him some Spaghetti Bolognese last week which went down very well. Which surprised me as I've tried her cooking Thanks for the tip nancy.

Herbie is just over 4 months old now and it seems he may have said his forst word. Unfortunately we were not there to hear it!!! We are on vacation and a friend is looking after him. Herbie has been making chattering noises for a couple of weeks now, but my friend is sure he heard him say hello today, he tried to get him to say it again but with no luck. Cant wait to get back to him and see if he is going to say anything else. We have bought him some great presents to make up for not being there, we have found a few good shops in the West Village of NYC. We have also ordered a play stand made in florida from the bottle brush tree, which I have read parrots go nuts for. We just have to convince the airline to let us bring it back to the UK. We have also bought him a harness, so that we can let him have some experience of the garden without loosing him. Does anyone have any experience / tips of these???

If i can get a photo of him in action i will post it here.

There is no discharge, or redness etc. It seems to be part of his cleaning ritual, but will keep an eye on it and take advice from a vet if it starts to look sore.

Herbie seems to love picking his nose, and not without some brute force. Sometimes I worry his whole foot is going to disappear in there!!! Is this normal for a grey??

thanks guys. Sorry to ask stupid questions, I'm probably being a bit over cautious!!

Has anyone found somewhere that sells bird safe padlocks for cage doors. I think it is only a matter of time before Herbie works out how to open the door of his cage. I have some padlocks but am worried they may contain zinc or lead etc in the covering.

Herbie and I had our first shower today, he seemed to enjoy it but didn't get as wet as Makena. Didn't want to push my luck as he seemed quite calm having a little water drizzled over him.

Good point, I should be clear that he was snoozing, I wasnt. I would be in fear of rolling over and crushing him (I'm not a small guy!!). He has also started exploring the house a lot more and enjoys going walk about, we are now being very careful to look where we are walking

Thanks for all the advice, I certainly wont do anything that upsets Herbie so will let him be how he wants to be. He had a little snooze in bed with me for the first time this morning

I am now bonding with Herbie very well, he is becoming very trusting and seems to look forward to a cuddle after dinner. I have got to the point where he is happy for me to put my hands around him gently. But if I try and put him on his back he gets annoyed (although as soon as I stop he is back for another tickle). I'm not sure how I can get to the point of him lying on his back with upsetting him until he gets used to it. Is there a clever way to get him to do this without upsetting him - will he do it naturally when he trusts me enough??

I was going to give him an old remote, but worried about the plastic being safe. I will check out toy phones, I would think he will enjoy pressing buttons that light up and make noise. Although it could be short lived for us

Hi Guys, Does anyone know of where we could buy parrot safe toy TV remote controls and or mobile phones. Herbie shows little interest in his own toys, but is desperate to chew the end of anything he sees us using. Thought it would be nice to get him his own phone that he can chew on without damaging it or himself.

Thanks for the reasurance, I think our biggest worry is the damage he is doing to his face (It seems to be even redder this morning). I guess we will have to monitor it over the next couple of days and see if it gets worse.

Thanks for that Dave, will have a look at getting some oil. Our vet also mentioned that the UV lighting would be good for Herbie's vision and that he would see colours more vibrantly. The other thing they discussed was bone desease and that the UV light would help absorb the calcium we are giving him in liquid form.

Hi Guys, I sort of asked this question in the middle of another post but thought I would ask it again in it's own subject. Is there a recommended time that you should leave a UV lamp on next to the bird cage??<br><br>Post edited by: dicky601, at: 2007/09/05 23:12

I had seen a couple of trial videos of his. He has also been emailing me every couple of days asking why I have not ordered a copy and how detrimental this could be to my parrots development if I dont. I didnt really appreciate that. From the amount of useful information here I can see that this forum will be much more beneficial to Herbie's well being.

Hi Guys, my name is Richard and my girlfriends name is Gisela. We have a 14 week old grey called Herbie. We have just finished feeding him baby formula and in the last few days he has learnt how to use his wings. I have to say this has been a bit frightening for all of us and we have had to make our flat bird friendly in a 3 dimensional way very quickly. He seems very calm and relaxed most of the time and we try to show him as much love and care as we can. We both have very busy jobs, but I wanted something to focus on outside of what I do for a living. Herbie has been fantastic for this, both of us now do less hours and even work at home a lot more. I have only posted two questions on here so far and people have been extremely friendly and helpful with both issues. Hopefully as we learn more about herbie we will be able to help future new owners.